In this photo taken on Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, Hezbollah supporters wave Hezbollah and Palestinian flags during a demonstration against the Israeli offensive in Gaza organized by Palestinian groups and the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group, near the U.N. headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon. With the death toll from the Israel-Gaza conflict mounting, Hezbollah has offered quiet words of encouragement to the Palestinians, pledging support and calling on Arab states to send them weapons to fight Israel. But beyond that, the Lebanese militant group appears to be staying firmly on the sidelines. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

TheDC Morning: But … but Hezbollah also has a soup kitchen!

1.) But … but Hezbollah has a soup kitchen too!— In 2006, the man nominated to be the next CIA chief, John Brennan, wanted people to know the terrorist group Hezbollah wasn’t “totally evil.” Charles Johnson reports for TheDC:

“‘Unfortunately, there is sometimes an unsophisticated understanding of some of these [foreign policy] challenges,’ he said, referring to the American public. ‘For example … it would be nice to be able to put Hezbollah in a category of being totally evil, but Hezbollah as an organization is a very complex one that has terrorist arm to it. It has a social and political nature to it as well.’ ‘You can’t divide the world into good and evil,’ Brennan continued. ‘There is a lot of good out there that tends to be camouflaged along with the evil. What we need to do as a government and a people is to really have a better appreciation of the needs and the challenges that people throughout the world face.'”

Seriously? This is Mickey Mouse thinking, which is alarming since Brennan will soon head the CIA. Yes, Hezbollah may sponsor soup kitchens when it’s not planning to kill Jews and turn Lebanon into an Islamic state. And John Wayne Gacy made people smile dressed in his clown costume.

2.) Biden’s anti-stimulus package— At least one man in New Orleans sees Joe Biden as having the opposite of the Midas touch. TheDC’s Alex Pappas reports:

“The first weekend of Mardi Gras in New Orleans is always a lucrative one for local businesses, especially for those located in the historic French Quarter neighborhood. But when the carnival season kicked off last weekend in southern Louisiana, one business failed to bring in the expected cash from the influx of revelers. That business, a parking garage company, says the blame for this lies with Vice President Joe Biden and the Secret Service agents who were protecting him Saturday during a visit to the city. ‘It was a big loss over the weekend,’ Sterling Chauvin, the chief operating officer of the Premium Parking Service, explained in an interview with The Daily Caller. .. ‘We had no idea that the vice president and Sen. Landrieu were coming,’ he continued. ‘We had no idea they were going to take possession of the top floor of my building and run armed officers up and down the ramps without letting us know. We got no warning.'”

3.) A rally for credit— While Republicans and Democrats in the Senate try to figure out how to construct an immigration bill that can pass with bipartisan support, President Obama held a rally to claim credit. TheDC’s Neil Munro reports

“President Barack Obama used a campaign-style rally in Las Vegas to portray himself as a champion for immigrants, and to style an immigration rewrite as a rejuvenation of the nation’s stalled economy. The pitch also acknowledged the opposition of Americans who worry that immigration will disadvantage American blue-collar workers and middle-income professionals. ‘The closer we get, the more emotional this debate is going to become,’ he said. ‘Immigration always inflames passions … [and prior immigrants] faced racism, they faced ridicule,’ said Obama.”

If Obama doesn’t somehow spoil the bill, he may actually deserve credit for that alone.

4.) No dumb dumbs need apply — David Freddoso, author of a new book on media bias, tells TheDC’s Jamie Weinstein that liberal bias isn’t going way anytime soon so conservatives can only counter it with good candidates — not dumb ones:

“In the near term, the media bias problem faced by conservatives will persist, Freddoso said, so the GOP will have to field smart and persuasive candidates to succeed instead ‘mush-heads.’ ‘[W]hen you field mush-heads for office, you’re just giving them and the political opposition an opening,’ he said. ‘There are too many Todd Akins running for office and winning primaries and raising money just by claiming to be the most conservative mush-head. As we saw with Akin, they give an already hostile media further opportunity to attack and to make one man’s stupidity into a viral propaganda campaign that spread to other races as well. Republicans have recently tried nominating idiots for office — I mean both establishment idiots and conservative idiots — and it hasn’t worked out very well,’ he continued. ‘It’s one thing to lose a race because you chose a conservative, but you never want to lose because you chose an obvious dim bulb to represent your party.'”